Zemeckis: Back To The Future Would Not Get Greenlit Today (Exclusive)

‘Back To The Future’ director Robert Zemeckis told Yahoo that the classic film, which is 30 years old this year, would not get made in Hollywood today and that current audiences wouldn’t be interested in seeing the film.

Talking to us while promoting his new film ‘The Walk’, Zemeckis said: “Sadly, I don’t think anyone would make that film today. I don’t think the audience would understand it or have the interest in seeing that movie.”

“I mean a lot of people would but it would never become the number one box office hit of the year [it was the top grossing film in the US in 1985].”

We asked him why he thought that and he said it was because it defies categorisation and isn’t easy to market.

“I think that what’s happened is that films have fallen into slots or categories”, he said. “One of the things that’s unique about ‘Back To The Future’ is that back in the days when we had video rental stores they never knew what shelf to put it. They didn’t know if it was a comedy or should be in the science fiction section or the period movie section. They didn’t know where to put it and that’s what makes it unique and what gives it such longevity.

“But it’s very difficult for audiences nowadays to spend their money to see something if they don’t already know exactly what it’s going to be ahead of time.”

Zemeckis experienced similar problems making ‘The Walk’, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philipe Petit, the daredevil who performed an amazing wire walk across the Twin Towers in New York in 1974.

Zemeckis said that making a blockbuster film with special effects that is not a sequel or based on a comic book was extremely difficult, even for such a successful director.

“Yeah it’s almost impossible to make almost any type of original story if it doesn’t have what we call a pre-sold title,” he said.

“It’s very difficult indeed. It took about ten years, nine or ten years to get this film off the ground. But I’m philosophical about it and I think that period of time allowed the digital effects to become more mature so we able to do the movie more spectacularly.”

Watch our full interview with movie legend Zemeckis below.

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Twin Towers Movie The Walk Making People Vomit

‘The Walk’ is in cinemas now.